Prelims

Half Title Page

EMBODIMENT AND REPRESENTATIONS OF BEAUTY

Series Page

ADVANCES IN GENDER RESEARCH

Series Editors: Vasilikie Demos and Marcia Texler Segal

Recent Volumes:

Editorial Advisory Board

• Miriam Adelman

  Universidade do Paraná, Brazil

• Franca Bimbi

  University of Padua, Italy

• Max Greenberg

  Boston University, USA

• Marla Kohlman

  Kenyon College, USA

• Preethi Krishnan

  O. P. Jindal Global University, India

• Chika Shinohara

  Momoyama Gakuin University, (St Andrew’s University), Japan

• Shaminder Takhar

  London South Bank University, UK

• Tiffany Taylor

  Kent State University, USA

Title Page

ADVANCES IN GENDER RESEARCH - VOLUME 35

EMBODIMENT AND REPRESENTATIONS OF BEAUTY

EDITED BY

ESTHER HERNÁNDEZ-MEDINA

Pomona College, USA

and

SHARINA MAÍLLO-POZO

University of Georgia, USA

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

Copyright Page

Emerald Publishing Limited

Emerald Publishing, Floor 5, Northspring, 21-23 Wellington Street, Leeds LS1 4DL.

First edition 2024

Editorial matter and selection © 2024 Esther Hernández-Medina and Sharina Maíllo-Pozo.

Individual chapters © 2024 The authors.

Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited.

Reprints and permissions service

Contact: www.copyright.com

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. Any opinions expressed in the chapters are those of the authors. Whilst Emerald makes every effort to ensure the quality and accuracy of its content, Emerald makes no representation implied or otherwise, as to the chapters’ suitability and application and disclaims any warranties, express or implied, to their use.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-83797-994-3 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-83797-993-6 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-83797-995-0 (Epub)

ISSN: 1529-2126 (Series)

Contents

About the Editors

Esther Hernández-Medina is Assistant Professor of Latin American Studies and Gender & Women’s Studies at Pomona College. She is a feminist academic, public policy expert, and activist from the Dominican Republic. Her research and teaching revolve around the question of how historically marginalized groups such as women, racial, ethnic, and sexual minorities are able to change public policy in their favor. She has studied the Dominican feminist movement and citizen participation in urban policies in Mexico City, São Paulo, and the Dominican Republic. She was a Humanities Studio Faculty Fellow (2021–22, and 2023–24) at Pomona College, and Open Education Faculty Fellow (2019) at the Claremont Colleges Center for Teaching and Learning and the Claremont Colleges Library. Her most recent publication is the book chapter “The Right to A Complete Life: The Struggles of the Dominican Feminist Movement” in Women’s Rights in Movement: Dynamics of Feminist Change in Latin America and the Caribbean (Springer, editors Inés M. Pousadela and Simone Bohn). She is also co-founder of the feminist group Tertulia Feminista Magaly Pineda in the Dominican Republic.

Sharina Maíllo-Pozo is Assistant Professor of Latinx studies in the Department of Romance Languages at the University of Georgia. She specializes in Latinx and Caribbean literature and culture, with special attention to the cultural production of the Dominican Republic and its diaspora in the United States. Some of her research papers and reviews have appeared in various edited volumes, mid-high tier academic journals. She was a Dominican Studies Fellow (2016–2017), Lilly Teaching Fellow (2019–2021), Willson Center for the Humanities Fellow (2020–2021), and UGA Teaching Academy Fellow (2022–2023). In 2021, she was the recipient of the Sandy Beaver Excellence in Teaching Award at the University of Georgia. She is working on two book manuscripts: Beyond Borderlands. Popular Music in Contemporary Dominican/Dominicanyork Literature and Tracing the Legacy of Camila Henríquez Ureña Through Translation and Beyond (co-authored with Dr Anne Roschelle).

About the Contributors

Salam Aboulhassan is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA. Her current research focuses on the experiences of Muslims within US workplaces and was awarded the National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement grant.

Jennifer Báez is Assistant Professor of Art History in the School of Art, Art History, and Design at the University of Washington. She specializes in the visual, material, and religious culture of Latin America and the African diaspora under the global Spanish empire. She received her PhD in Art History from Florida State University, where she taught courses in museum studies and the history of African art.

Noelle K. Brigden, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Marquette University. Her research and teaching interests include gender, human security, international relations, borders, transnationalism, violence, the politics of the body, trauma, fieldwork ethics, and political ethnography. Her book, The Migrant Passage: Clandestine Journeys from Central America (Cornell University Press, 2018), won the Yale Ferguson Award.

Julia Chin earned a BA in Sociology with distinction from UC Santa Barbara in 2021. She now works at Over Zero, an NGO which focuses on identity-based and political violence prevention. She is a contributor to the University of Georgia Press edited volume, Books Through Bars (2024).

Spencier R. Ciaralli, PhD, is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology, Augustana University, USA. They work in the areas of sexual behavior, gender, and sexuality, as well as medical sociology. Their publications appear in journals such as Women’s Reproductive Health and Consumption Markets & Culture.

Shameika D. Daye, MPA, is Doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida, USA. Working at the intersection of race, gender, and embodiment of Black women, she explores how Black women navigate the politics of identity, authenticity, and beauty through the lens of consumerism and the workplace.

Courtney Dress is a Doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at Kent State University, USA. She studies inequalities, focusing on issues of race and gender, as well as sexuality/asexuality. Her dissertation examines racial, gender, and intersectional disparities in Computer Science education.

Marley Olson, PhD, is an Instructor of Sociology at Walla Walla Community College, Washington, USA. She earned her PhD in Sociology at the University of Colorado Boulder specializing in gender, medicine, health, and disability. Her research examines nonvisible disabilities and contested illnesses, with a focus on gender disparities.

Jaleesa Reed, PhD, is Assistant Professor in the Department of Human Centered Design at Cornell University, USA. Her research focuses on the intersections of beauty culture, identity, and place informed by human geography, feminist studies, and merchandising in the fashion and beauty industries.

Sekani L. Robinson is an Assistant Professor at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona in the Sociology Department. She earned her PhD in Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research focuses on race, gender, culture, embodiment, sport, and class.

Series Editors’ Preface

We welcome this extensive focus on embodiment and representation to our Advances in Gender Research series. The guest editors and contributors from the United States, El Salvador, and the Dominican Republic take intersectional and interdisciplinary approaches to the body and its representation. The research settings are varied from the ballet and the gym to the college campus and media. The authors demonstrate that beauty varies not only with gender, race, ethnicity, class, body configuration, and location but also with one’s perception of self and others. The impacts of stereotypes and European norms are evident in everything from the clothing choices of Muslim office workers to the self-images of mixed-race women and non-binary individuals in the dating scene, as is the importance of self-care in the face of such symbolic violence. Hair is a focus not only for women losing theirs during cancer treatment but also for Black women shopping for haircare products and ballerinas. A focus on weight and body type occurs across chapters and countries as well. We hope readers will come away from the volume with new definitions of beauty and a new understanding of embodiment.

Vasilikie Demos, University of Minnesota, Morris, USA

Marcia Texler Segal, Indiana University Southeast, USA